Cheyenne Topical Dictionary

Appendix A — Guide to Pronunciation

The Cheyenne alphabet was designed to make it as easy as possible for
people who can read English to be able to read Cheyenne while respecting the
internal system of the Cheyenne language itself.

The letters h^, m, _n and s^ are usually pronounced in Cheyenne as they are in
English. Here are some Cheyenne examples:

buSse fly (insect)

mfcfc'e feather

nfctse Indian of another tribe

£&no boat

The "normal" k, £, and _t are pronounced exactly as they are in English when
they follow the English letter s^. In other words, they are "soft", or, in
technical terms, voiceless unaspirated stops. They almost sound like the
English letters £, b_, and d^, but not quite, since English b^, «d, and £ require
that your vocal cords vibrate when you say them while the vocal cords do not
vibrate for Cheyenne Jc, £, and t. If you are a speaker of Cheyenne, you may at
first feel like writing these Cheyenne sounds with the English letters b_, d, and
£, as has been done with some informal Cheyenne spelling systems. However, it
is best to be accurate and write them as tt, jp, and t^ as they are pronounced
following the English letter j^. Listen to their sound in these English words:

skip

spoon

s^tick

These letters have the same sound in the following Cheyenne words:

ka'IBkdne child

m4 'kono tribal councilmen

p<5dso cat

ma'jDa'o back

£o'ha glove

v£6ts£va deer

hoest&to belt

The letter S is called an "esh". It is pronounced the same as the two
English letters sh (as in the English word 'ship'). Listen to this sound in:

HS'SIe duck

dove^e he went to bed

ka'Ij[k6ne child

The sound of the Cheyenne letter x^ is not found in the English language.
It is technically called a voiceless uvular fricative, as in the German word
Achtung! . The reader can come close to this sound by imitating the short quick
sound children make when pretending to shoot a gun, something like "kx! M . Take
off the Ic sound at the beginning and you are left with the jc sound. It is
important to remember that Cheyenne x_ is NOT pronounced with a "ks" sound as in
the English word 'ax'.

The glottal stop, or "glottal" for short, is a very important letter in
Cheyenne. It is found in many words. It is something like a very quick stop in
the sound of a vowel. It can be heard in English separating the two syllables
of the exclamation "oh oh", although it is not written in the English alphabet.
In this book glottal stop is written with the apostrophe. Some words
illustrating this letter are:

he ' e woman

heJ_eo'o women

hej_e liver

pa_|_eJjpaJ_on£he c ame 1

najjie three

gplhgva_|_e it's good (cf. gp£h£vahe he's good)

he_|_ama above (cf. heSma on the side)

he'<* 'hfime mares (cf . he£h£me her husband)

nihkoj^e Mother! (vocative; cf. nfihkohe bear)

The Cheyenne letter _v is sometimes pronounced quite similarly to English v^
and at other times close to English w- And if it is just before a voiceless
vowel, such as at the end of a word, it will sound almost like the English
letter _f. In technical terms, we say that each way that Cheyenne v_ is
pronounced is part of the same phoneme, namely, the phoneme /v/ . Pronounce the
v's in the following words:

v£<5ts£va deer (the first v_ is almost like English w, the second like f)

vo'e cloud (here the v^ is between English ^v and w)

v££'e dwelling (here the v^ is almost like English _v)

v£'k£so bird (here the v is almost like English v)

When the v is pronounced almost like English v_ it is close to what is
technically called a voiced bilabial (with labiodental coloration) fricative.
When it is almost like English J[ it is technically called a voiceless bilabial
(with labiodental coloration) fricative. When it is almost like English w it is
technically called a bilabial semivowel.

There are three "phonemic" Cheyenne vowels, £, <e, and £. Each of these has
a rather relaxed feel (not tense). The a_ is pronounced similar to the a_ in the
English word 'father 1 (but not with the vowel sound way back in the mouth as in
some dialects of English), and the _u of the English word 'mud 1 . The letter e_ is
usually pronounced very close to the way the "short 11 i_ of English is pronounced
as in the English word 'pin 1 . (Those who designed the Cheyenne alphabet
realized that the letter _i might be more accurate, but the dot on the letter i_
could be confused with a dot over a vowel which indicates voicelessness . ) The
letter o is pronounced similar to the £ in the English word 'note 1 , often almost
like the two letters oo in English 'look*.

Cheyenne vowels are often voiceless (or "whispered"). A vowel which is

whispered has the ° mark (or a dot) over it. A vowel at the end of a word is

automatically voiceless before a pause. Because this voicelessness is automatic
it is not marked with a voicelessness symbol (° or raised dot).

These, then, are the thirteen letters of the Cheyenne alphabet. There are
three vowels: a, e, and £, and the other ten letters are consonants.

Whenever there is a consonant followed by a vowel with a voicelessness
symbol followed by the letter h, followed by a regular (not dotted) vowel, we
say that we have a "complex syllable". This is a difficult part of Cheyenne
writing to learn. The consonant which is the first letter of a complex syllable
is pronounced different from its usual "soft" pronunciation. It takes on a kind
of "hard" or aspirated pronunciation. Listen to the special consonant sounds
underlined in the following words:

m&heo'o house

jjahoeBfestStse cradleboard

p^nSheo ' o flour

vShe 'so nest

3amoJ_&h£otse he ran by

ma 'jcihe ' ne turkey

tgeheBghaseo ' o match

£soheo'o tepee lining/dew cloth

n£hkoheo ' o bears

tShohko hammer

While this is not the proper place for a complete explanation of the technical
phenomena involved with complex syllables, it would helpful to mention some of
the most important points. There are several aspects of complex syllables which
are particularly difficult for anyone , both speakers and non-speakers , to
master. But if you are a speaker of Cheyenne, try to concentrate on pronouncing
words with complex syllables, based on your own knowledge of the language, and
try not to become confused by the difficulties of the way these letters are
written. If you are not a speaker of Cheyenne you should particularly
concentrate on learning the special way the consonants are pronounced as well as
the vowels which are part of the complex syllables. An important part of the
complex syllable phenomenon is what is called "diphthongization" of the vowels.
In brief, the vowel a_ is treated as a "weak 11 member of a complex syllable since
it becomes a glide (a j^-like sound) of the newly formed diphthong. Hence, in
the word hdhklha'e 'hat 1 we actually have a pronunciation something like
h6hkhya'l. In m&heo'o 'house' the actual "phonetic 11 pronunciation can be
written as something like mh2y5'3. The word vShe'so 'nest' is phonetically
fhoy'sS, etc .

For those who may wonder why we, and those who came before us who designed
this alphabet, have not used some "easier" way to write complex syllables, the
answer lies with trying to respect the actual way that the Cheyenne language is
structured. Linguists call the principle here one of honoring "morphological
canonicity". Making the alphabet "simpler" for complex syllables would make
things more difficult for other parts of showing how Cheyenne words are
constructed. For instance, we COULD write 'bear 1 as nahgo (or nahgoh) because
many people feel the last consonant sounds more like an English £ than a Ic. But
then we would have to write the plural 'bears 1 as something like nahkhoyo'o (or
possibly nahkoyo'o), because everyone agrees that the consonant here "sounds
just like an English k". However, writing like this would obscure the important
fact that Cheyenne 'bear' and 'bears' are very closely related in terms of their
meaning parts (morphemes), that is the plural 'bears' is exactly made up of a
first part which means 'bear' and a second part -o'o, which is a very common
sequence of letters which shows that Cheyenne animate nouns are plural. So we
write 'bear' as n£hkohe (including the high pitch, or tone, mark) and the plural
'bears' is n£hk§heo'o. If you remember to watch for the important mark over the
vowel after the k you can know that this k has a "hard" or aspirated sound.
Since the k of ndhkohe 'bear' is not followed by a vowel with a ° mark over it,
it has a "soft" (unaspirated) sound. This is a rather simple example; other
examples would confirm the importance of writing complex syllables even more
forcefully.

Regular consonants (that is, those not part of complex syllables) are
voiceless (whispered) when they precede regular voiceless vowels. Hence,
m6hkave 'bobcat' can be written "phonetically" as mdhkaf. And ame 'pemmican'
can be written phonetically as am.

Alert listeners can hear w- and £-like sounds between certain vowels even
though they are not written in words. Specifically, between the vowels o and a
the w off-glide will be pronounced, as at the end of the word hot6£'a (sometimes
pronounced hot6&'e) 'buffalo'. And a ^ off-glide is pronounced whenever the
vowel e_ is followed by the vowel £ or _a. So the word £p£oto 'he hates him' is
pronounced £p£yoto. And the word m£an£va 'in the summer 1 is pronounced like
m£yan£fa. We do not need to write a w or ^ in such words because they occur
automatically, or , in technical terms , they are non-phonemic ♦

CHEYENNE TOPICAL DICTIONARY

by
Josephine Stands In Timber Glenmore

and
Wayne Leman

(This book properly belongs to the Cheyenne people. It may be
copied by any means without permission, provided the copies are
made for the direct benefit and use of Cheyenne people.
Permission should be requested for any other use of the material,
including publication of any kind, other than for brief
quotations, from the address listed below.)

Copyright ® 1984 by Cheyenne Translation Project

Cheyenne Translation Project
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